


exists no miracle mightier than this: to feel

by deerie



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Past Abuse, Physical Abuse, Recovery, Repression, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-04
Updated: 2013-04-04
Packaged: 2017-12-07 10:23:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/747428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deerie/pseuds/deerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isaac remembers his dad who taught him how to multiply nines on his hands, who helped him with his homework, who practiced lacrosse with him in the backyard when Isaac was trying to make the team. Isaac remembers the good days, because he can’t remember the bad ones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	exists no miracle mightier than this: to feel

**Author's Note:**

> Check the end notes for trigger warnings! 
> 
> Last night I wrote a [blurb](http://deerie.tumblr.com/post/46961406568) about a fic that I wanted written and then I ended up writing it because why not. I'm so sorry, Isaac!
> 
> Title is shamelessly taken from e.e. cummings.

The thing is, he still loves his dad. Isaac knows this is something his friends will never understand, because all they know of his dad is that he abused his son. They only know the Mr. Lahey with the temper, the Mr. Lahey who berated the only family he had left, who left a boy, shaking and terrified, locked in a freezer in the basement.

Isaac remembers his dad. Isaac remembers his dad who made him soup when he was sick and sat by his bed, who ran a hand down his back when Isaac vomited in the toilet, who would take him out for pancakes after he was well again. Isaac remembers his dad who taught him how to multiply nines on his hands, who helped him with his homework, who practiced lacrosse with him in the backyard when Isaac was trying to make the team. Isaac remembers the good days, because he can’t remember the bad ones.

Won’t. Isaac remembers the good days, because he won’t remember the bad ones.

It isn’t like he makes a conscious decision not to remember. Isaac doesn’t wake up one morning and think, _‘Nope, I’m not going to remember being locked in the freezer for hours last night.’_

Isaac just forgets. Things happen to him - bad things - and Isaac pushes them out of his mind and forgets they happened.

He forgets the arc his dad’s arm makes when he swings his fist toward Isaac’s face. He forgets the way his dad’s cheeks go red and the spittle that flies from his mouth when he yells and he forgets the chunks of time he spends locked in the freezer in the basement, forgets the reason why his fingertips are bloody when he wakes up, why his throat is sore in the morning.

As much as he hates his dad, Isaac still loves him fiercely. There still exists a knot in his stomach whenever he catches someone speaking badly about his dad, twin spots of red stand out high on his cheeks, and he fists his hands into his shirt to stop from lashing out.

Because Isaac knows the dad who took care of him, who gave him a roof over his head, who fed and clothed him, who kept him safe from the outside world, who loved him. He knows the dad he had on the good days.

His friends have never had to differentiate between the bad days and the good days.

They don’t get it. They will never get it.

Isaac is okay; he adapts.

 

*

 

Isaac doesn’t trust Peter.

Nobody trusts Peter, but the point is that Isaac doesn’t know why he doesn’t trust Peter. He wasn’t aware of the time Peter was an alpha, bloodthirsty and seeking revenge. He never saw the hellbeast Peter morphed into, never lost someone to Peter, never experienced the visceral fear the others felt.

Scott tells Isaac that Peter is bad, says things like, “I never wanted to be a werewolf.”

Isaac tries to sympathize with Scott, but Isaac took the bite. He doesn’t understand why Scott wouldn’t want to be a werewolf, wouldn’t want the power to keep himself safe.

Stiles tells Isaac, stiltedly, that he can’t trust Peter and to never let his guard down around him. Stiles says, “He takes away your ability to choose. He always makes you pick the option he wants.”

It’s one thing for people to tell him not to trust someone. It’s an entirely different thing to feel the distrust deep in his gut and not know why.

What he does know is that Peter was dead and now he isn’t. Isaac knows he can’t trust something that used to be dead, but he also knows that this fact isn’t what rages in his head and tells him not to trust Peter.

Nothing good comes back from the dead. And if Peter could come back from the dead, what’s to say something else couldn’t come back too? Isaac doesn’t think about his father, rotting away in the bottom of a six foot grave, doesn’t think about all the anger in his dad’s body, doesn’t wonder where all the anger goes when a person dies.

****

*

****

Derek is irritated with him. Isaac knows this because everyone is always a little irritated with him. Isaac knows this because he knows he’s things like _worthless_ and _a burden_ because those words are seared inside his mind.

Isaac may have iron clad control over his shift on the full moon, but Isaac knows Derek is irritated with him over things like Isaac’s dislike of fighting, of things like Erica being dead and Isaac still alive.

His dad’s face flashes in his mind’s eye and he hears his dad’s voice - _“If I thought it would bring Camden or your mother back, I would trade you in a heartbeat.”_ \- but Isaac shoves the memory back into a box and pushes it away and moves on.

Scott’s the only one who cares that Isaac is alive but Isaac thinks Scott is the worst kind of naive, the kind that sees the best in everyone and Isaac knows down to his bones that there is nothing _good_ inside of him.

His insides are rotten because that’s the only thing that explains the bad days.

His insides are rotten and his body is reckless and he doesn’t know how to hang on to the things that he wants.

Derek tucks him into bed after a bad fight - Derek is irritated with him, Isaac _knows_ \- and sits on the edge and says, “Don’t you think it’s weird -” Pauses. “Just because you heal doesn’t mean the injuries are okay.”

The only thing Isaac is good at is collecting bruises and bumps and scrapes. It’s funny how they never stay anymore. Maybe it means he isn’t as good at them as he thinks. He can’t look down at a scattering of bruises and say he survived because there are no more bruises. Isaac can’t be a survivor because there is nothing to show that he made it through.

Isaac doesn’t say anything back to Derek. He thinks Derek is still mad at him, though. He doesn’t know how to feel about it because he’s forgotten how.

****

*

****

The woods are silent and that’s never a good sign. The moon hangs fat in the sky but it isn’t quite full, not yet. Isaac can still feel its pull, can feel something simmering below his skin. There are alphas in these woods, and not just his.

Even Stiles is quiet.

Stiles is so quiet, stomach shallowly slashed but opened unnaturally all the same.

Isaac stares down at him and realizes he has no idea what to do.

Between one breath and the next, Derek is there and Derek grabs Isaac by the arm, tugs him down to the ground next to Stiles. Derek presses Isaac’s hands against the wound in Stiles’ side and snarls out, pleads, “Stay. Stay here with him, Isaac!”

Isaac’s hands are slick with Stiles’ blood and Derek rips away into the night, after the alpha who did this to _pack_.

Isaac stays and puts pressure on the cut and leeches away the pain because he knows he can handle more than Stiles. Isaac can handle a lot of pain. He pulls and pulls and presses Stiles’ pain back below his own ribs until Stiles reaches up with a shaky palm and presses it to the side of Isaac’s face and says, “S’good, stop, s’good, you did good, you can stop.”

Stiles is the one who will keep the bruises and the scars, even though Isaac is the one who deserves to have them.

That’s when the cavalry comes crashing through the underbrush. Peter takes one look at the two of them and then melts away into the forest like a shadow. Scott’s brought Deaton and Deaton patches Stiles up right there with foul smelling herbs and things in bottles and then, when Stiles loses consciousness, with a needle and sutures.

Isaac sits where Deaton pushes him away, sits with blood on his hands and the side of his face, blood that isn’t his. He feels sick.

Derek comes back an indeterminable amount of time later with another alpha’s blood smeared across his mouth and Isaac wonders again where the anger goes after a person dies. He wonders if anger seeps into the ground and waits, disperses into the water, finds another body willing to play host.

Derek pulls Isaac up from the ground and lets him sway close and breathe in _alpha_ and _safe_. When he pulls back, Derek flashes his red eyes and Isaac doesn’t know what he’s done wrong this time. Derek only says, “You did good. You’re okay. You’re _good_.”

Isaac doesn’t push his words away. He thinks maybe Derek means them.

****

*

****

Isaac doesn’t heal, doesn’t think he will ever heal. No amount of werewolf healing can fix the broken parts of his body, the scars that no one sees - can’t fix the trust his dad shattered. Isaac will still flinch when someone moves too quickly near him. Isaac will never be able to take criticism well, will never be able to distinguish between an attack and words meant to be constructive.

He’s starting to feel things again, though, and he thinks maybe that’s okay.

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Isaac displays really unhealthy coping mechanisms for dealing with the trauma inflicted on him by his father. He doesn't have particularly good mindset within the fic either, so if that's something that could trigger you, be careful! I don't think the description of the violence throughout the fic is too heavy, but I'm going to go ahead and warn for it and warn for the stomach injury Stiles sustains toward the end of the piece. 
> 
> [*](http://deerie.tumblr.com)


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